Lullaby of Night
by xOhxSnapx
Summary: “I have this place I go to in my dreams… And when I’m there it’s like nothing matters.” Harry reflects on his fourth and fifth year as he enters his seventh and final year. One shot. Complete.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own these characters, I only wish.

**Notes:** I was feeling emotional. Tell me if it sucks, and feel free to complain.

**Summary:** "I have this place I go to in my dreams…. And when I'm there it's like nothing matters."

* * *

Harry sighed, his whole boy shaking. He held his right hand in front of him only to watch it shake uncontrollably. He felt like he was loosing it. Like he was going mad. Why couldn't he have been graced with a better life than this? Wasn't there something else that he could do? He wasn't complaining about finally be able to sleep now. But there was still that gut feeling that never left him. And today it had become much, much worse. And he didn't even know why. 

He had actually woken up this morning ready and able to vomit. He didn't. Instead, when there was no one left in the dormitory he sat in front of his trunk, and just stared at the mirror that was hidden under a book or two. Though it was broken it still meant something to him, and probably always will. Though he had only sat slumped on his bed for a moment, letting his fingers trace over the glass, that moment had passed quickly and he hid the old thing back in the trunk before heading out for the day.

Now he sat in one of many window sills in the Astronomy Tower, the sleeves to his white shirt drawn up, the cuffs undone and one leg pulled up close to him, the other leg dangling. He wanted to believe in so many thing, so many things that he couldn't believe in. He told himself that what was happening was for the wizarding world, and the Muggle world, even if the two were at a sudden war with each other. Still, it would all have to come to an end sooner or later.

But what did that really mean to Harry? What would he get out of it?

The joy of knowing that people were safe from Voldemort at last?

Nothing, not a single person could bring back the things that had been taken from him. The

Not one person in the entire world would ever be able to bring back Lily and James Potter. Harry would never know what it would be like to actually have parents. To wake up to people in the summer each morning who cared about him (besides friends, of course). But why should it matter now anyway? Seventeen years he spent without his parents, seventeen years without being hugged, or told that he was loved. The seventeenth year would be his hardest. He had become a legal wizard without parents, out a guardian.

The more shaky his hands got, the tighter he clenched his fists. Harry didn't doubt that his knuckles were probably white by now, but he didn't care. He was going to have a break down in less than a few minutes, and he knew it. Oh did he ever know it. He couldn't stop it. He was emotionally challenged. For the past few months his emotions had pretty much ran his life, the way he acted, and even the things he had done. He needed better control of them, his emotions. And to him, anger just didn't seem an emotion to him. Just something that happened.

What was he feeling at the moment? Happiness, worry, grief, self pity? What was it?

Harry whispered something to himself as he pressed his forehead against the window. He drew his knee's up to him, and with hands still clenched, placed his forehead on his knees. Now visibly shaking all over. It was a sad thing really. The boy most have known to be the hero, to save the day, or else be a complete idiot (which he was by now a master of), was having a break down. Possibly his worse because he didn't know what he was feeling.

But he did.

He knew very well what he was feeling.

Loss.

Loss; the condition of being deprived or bereaved of something or someone. That's what Harry was feeling. For his parents. And anger perhaps, anger towards Voldemort for taking them from him when he was little. There was just so many thing going through his head that only loss, and yes anger were the only things he could feel, if even that. He was angry at Voldemort for pretty much taking his life away from him. Because of him he was forced to live the way he does, for putting a giant weight on his shoulders, for giving him a mark he would forever have as a reminder of his past

Or was he angry at the Lestrange woman for taking his last bit of shining hope from him? The last link, he felt, to his parents? For taking the last person that he would be able to stay, and live with away from? For taking someone he barely knew but loved so dearly as a father and a friend? Yes, he was still mad with Dumbledore as well, probably more than he should be. But in times like these Harry couldn't see how the old man could be making bets as he was, how any of the faculty could be for that matter.

Harry closed his eyes as he sat on the window sill with his forehead on his knees. He felt tears burning their eyes to his eyes, threatening to reach the brim at any given moment. However, his eyes hadn't been shut for more than a moment before he snapped them open and was looking at the fabric of his black pants. He let out a shuddered sigh and tried to control his shaking. But even as he looked up, words from his fifth year still haunted him.

You'd have thought that they would have fled from his mind long ago. They didn't.

It wasn't just echo's from his fifth year he heard, but his fourth as well. He recalled very well the sound of his fathers voice, the sweet sound of his mothers, but the two things that brought those thoughts down on him were the voices of the two people he wanted least to see; Bellatrix Lestrange, and Voldemort. Each with a high voice all their own, and just as cold as the next, to Harry they meant nothing but death for that was all that they had brought upon him.

Life wasn't the thing that screwed him over, but the things that were in his life. The Dark Lord, Death Eaters, the very art of betrayal, hatred that ran though adjoining families that somehow tied with him, though never by blood. It may have seemed silly but Harry had been scarred for life by a man. A man who simply refused to die, or rather who wouldn't go out with a fight. Because of that one man, Harry had to fight each year for his life, and every so often he would question why. Why he was still fighting the on going battle when it could all be ended for him, and he could at last be with his family.

Harry wanted more than anything to see the smiling faces of his parents that he so often viewed in pictured, he would give anything just to see Sirius again, and know that he was alright. He wanted to be held by his parents for once, and know that he was safe. Harry could only dream of the childhood he never had, and the parents he never had.

Now it seemed that Sirius would be joining that dream family of his. And perhaps, early in the morning, just before dawn, Harry would visit that dream and see the faces that he longed to see, together, happy. Just as a family should be, and then tell himself, that one day, one day in the distant future he would be there with them all, and in that dream they would live forever.

As Harry sat there now, his head lifted from his knees, he chanced a glance out the window and a ghost of a smile crossed his face, and he came to a realization right then again there. No matter how much you admit to yourself that someone is gone, and they'll never come back; it still will never take the pain way. It would always be there, like a monster in the closet, reminder of what doesn't want to be remembered. But for some, that pain needs to be felt.

And Harry felt it each day.

When Harry was young, he had invisible friends. They would play, and tell stories in the cupboard under the stairs. His invisible friends would often times venture out of the cupboard and around the world only to come back a day later and tell the little boy of all the sights they had seen. Harry remembered giggling at the silly stories they shared. They would dream together of going to the stars and play on the moon. But now as Harry thought about it, he wondered where his friends had gone, and realized that when he had turned six Dudley told him that things such as invisible friends were stupid, and that he was stupid, and he had realized that his friends were never there.

"I have this place I go to in my dreams…. And when I'm there it's like nothing matters. I see my Mum, and she tells me everything is alright. Dad's there, too. He tells me about how proud he is of me, and how glad he is that I am his son. We talk for hours, and they tell me that Sirius will be there soon, and that he'll be there next time I visit," Harry said softly into the empty room. But to him, the room wasn't empty anymore. His friends had come back and were waiting to hear all of his stories.


End file.
